By Brian M. Downing posted by Michael Collins

Hosni Mubarak's thirty-year rule in Egypt is nearing an end and though the denouement of events there is still unclear, the new polity is almost certainly to be shaped by the military institutions and popular sentiments. This is causing considerable dismay in Jerusalem and Washington. National security institutions tend to think in worst-case scenarios, but recent events in Egypt present opportunities for the long sought after solution to the Palestinian problem.Image

Anti-Israel Sentiment

Public sentiments that erupted in Egypt, like those in Tunisia and Jordan and Yemen, are based on a large youth segment that sees only dismal opportunity in a country whose economy is sluggish, corrupt, and dominated by the regime and its coterie of supporters. This demographic bulge will not be easily mollified and its concerns and demands will shape the politics of the region for decades.

Not too far below the surface is anger over Mubarak's acquiescence to Israel's actions toward fellow Muslims. Israel, in the eyes of the Egyptian public, has brutalized the Palestinian people, expanded settlements ever deeper into the West Bank, and inflicted great casualties on the people of Gaza and Lebanon.

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by Stephen Lendman

Throughout decades of brutal rule, Mubarak remained a steadfast US ally. As a result, Washington rewarded him generously. US administrations also ignored his crimes, corruption, and lawlessness, as late January released WikiLeaks cables reveal, showing Obama knew he kept power through ruthless state terror.

On January 15, 2009, ambassador Margaret Scobey called security force brutality "routine and pervasive," saying:

"(P)olice using force to extract confessions from criminals (is) a daily event. (US informants) estimate there are literally hundreds of torture incidents every day in Cairo police stations alone."

Political activists and opponents are also targeted, Scobey adding:

"(T)he GOE (government of Egypt) is probably torturing (an April 6 activist) to scare other....members into abandoning their political activities." It also referred to the "sexual molestation of a female 'April 6 activist,' " and that another victim's torture only stopped "when he began cooperating." Moreover, "standing orders from the Interior Ministry between 2000 and 2006 (instructed) the police to shoot, beat and humiliate judges in order to undermine judicial independence."

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by Stephen Lendman

A previous article addressed torture as official US policy under Bush, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/07/torture-as-official-us-policy.html

It remains so under Obama, authorized at the highest levels of government as part of America's bogus war on terror to instill fear and target suspected political opponents globally, including at home. No matter that it violates US and international law that prohibits torture at all times under all circumstances with no allowed exceptions. Nonetheless, on September 17, 2001, Bush issued a 12 page "memorandum of notification" directive to CIA's director and National Security Council members, authorizing CIA to capture suspected terrorists and Al Qaeda members, then hold and interrogate them in offshore detention facilities. It launched his torture program by vesting CIA operatives with unprecedented lawless power. It gave them carte blanche authority to function extra-judicially by whatever methods it chose.

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By Silver Shield

Back when I was a thoroughly indoctrinated Fox News Junkie, I was constantly confronted by people calling George W. Bush either a complete idiot or and evil genius. GWB was either a drooling buffoon who was incapable of doing the simplest of tasks or he was a third generation Fascist genius, who was hell bent on systematically destroying the American Republic. Being a kool-aide drinker myself, I just didn’t get why people didn’t see him as a warm, caring, strong, and patriotic president. This is what ultimately led me to ask a deeper question, how is it possible that one guy could be seen by so many people, in so many different ways?

Fast forward to the 2008 presidential election. Barack Obama (I love how his name still comes up as a misspelling) comes on the scene and the same thing happens again, only in reverse. Now Obama is either a complete idiot or an evil genius. He’s either an empty suit that cannot put two words together without his teleprompter or an evil communist bastard who’s plotting to destroy the America Republic. And yet to the average Obama supporter, they just don’t get why people don’t see him as a young, charismatic, intelligent and motivating president. Again, how is it possible that one guy can be seen by so many people in so many different ways?

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James Petras

Introduction

To understand the Obama regime’s policy toward Egypt, the Mubarak dictatorship and the popular uprising it is essential to locate it in an historical context. The essential point is that Washington, after several decades of being deeply embedded in the state structures of the Arab dictatorships, from Tunisia through Morocco, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, is attempting to re-orient its policies to incorporate and/or graft liberal-electoral politicians onto the existing power configurations.

While most commentators and journalists spill tons of ink about the “dilemmas” of US power , the novelty of the Egyptian events and Washington’s day to day policy pronouncements, there are ample historical precedents which are essential to understand the strategic direction of Obama’s policies.

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